Recently appointed group general manager of General Pants Co. Craig King has the task of managing a spirited, creative team and driving both the youthwear chain and its surf division. Melinda Oliver taps into his strategy.
Reining in the energy, passion and enthusiasm of a largely Gen Y team is a task that invigorates Craig King, but it also drives the new group general manager of General Pants Co. a little crazy.
“The challenge is corralling that [energy] and being able to make it tangible to output, rather than a lot of static and creative ideas – and going, ‘That’s a good one’ and ‘OK, we can use that idea’,” he laughs.
King doesn’t appear a great deal older than his staff, who are predominantly under the age of 30. And sitting in the company’s trendy Sydney head offices – wearing the latest jeans, a white t-shirt, canvas trainers and an oversized, limited edition Nixon watch – it appears he would fit right in with the ‘kids’.
“I work for them, they don’t work for me. They keep me very accountable on things.”
That being said, with around 80 employees in head office and over 1000 sales assistants nationally, communication, direction and planning are vital.
“We have hard management and soft management,” he says. “Hard management is setting up systems and putting in some rigour and structure around that. But then we get out of the way and let them be creative, giving them space to come up with great ideas. So we try to keep it really interesting, really creative and try not to shave off the edges.”
It is this dynamic, ever-evolving environment that encouraged King to jump ship from medical studies to fashion retail 20-odd years ago.
“For me it [fashion retail] has always been a good combination of art and science. It wasn’t just the finance department and it wasn’t just the design department – I found my groove in the middle.”
King began as a sales assistant in a Melbourne boutique called Trellini, where he was swept off on international buying trips with its owner. In Paris, he met Marcs founder Mark Keighery, who offered him a job in Sydney. Following that, experience with Ambassador Clothing, Mambo, Billabong and Beach Culture forged his path to General Pants.
King has worked for the company since 2006, as both general manager of the General Pants retail chain and as general manager of its surf division, which encompasses Surf Dive ‘n’ Ski, Jetty Surf and Billabong concept stores.
Now as group general manager, his task is to bring the best practice of each to the fore. Both sides will maintain a divisional manager, with Jacquie Vuleta in the role for General Pants and the surf appointment to be announced.
A reworked tiered structure will see more responsibility given to department heads within the business, across buying, marketing, visual merchandising and retail operations. King will lead them in implementing new brand strategies for the stores, retail rollouts, promotions and online and community engagement initiatives.
He hopes to do so with the same passion possessed by the company’s executive chairman, Phil Staub, who purchased General Pants around 15 years ago.
“The culture that he built around energy and diversity is still alive and well,” King says. “He just gets it. He has this knack of walking into a store or looking at a range and knowing what will sell.”
The company currently operates 40 General Pants stores and around 40 stores in the surf portfolio. Recent openings in Sydney include a General Pants flagship at MidCity centre and another at World Square.
Around 10 to 20 more stores will be rolled out over the next two to three years. King says online sales have proven invaluable in identifying new territories for store development.
“Obviously you choose some [store locations] by the notoriety of the shopping centres and they will tell you they are trading for a particular demographic.
“But since we went online last November, where we are selling product and where we are shipping it to is building up this blueprint for where the hotspots are.”
South Australia is proving strong for online consumers and General Pants opened its first store there last year, with more planned. A new store will open in Perth soon and the first store for the ACT is scheduled to launch in June.
E-commerce is a growing sector of the business, with King and his staff constantly reviewing and experimenting with the medium. He says the buying team is becoming more savvy with what works well on-screen versus in-store.
For example, while denim is a winning ticket for the bricks and mortar outlets, it does not spark the same fire online.
“Girls have to try on jeans – they don’t buy five pairs to just wear one and return the rest.”
The General Pants brand portfolio includes street and denim labels such as Ksubi, Nudie Jeans Co., Levis and Lee.
King says working with brands to create exclusive lines for the store and becoming known as a ‘destination’ to purchase certain labels is a primary aim.
“Particularly in the type of environment where your competitors are trying to stock the same things, we have to work on differentiation as we want to sell our product at full price,” he says.
“There’s a markdown war on at present which we are trying to stay out of.”
Research into customer behaviour revealed that 25 per cent of General Pants customers are going into store every week.
“They are not necessarily buying something every week, but part of their ritual is to see us online or to go to the mall and hang out with their friends after school and pop in.”
To retain their interest, more in-season buying has been adopted. Working closely with brands, the company has increased the pace of deliveries, with most dropping in new stock weekly.
Window displays are changed every three weeks and the online homepage is also regularly updated. “We ‘data-blast’ [email] customers once a week information about what we are selling or stock that is coming through. So it is constant communication with our target audience.”
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are an obvious fit for the company and its tech-savvy young consumers. It does not engage in traditional advertising forms.
“Sometimes its not all about selling, but being at one with them [customers],” he says.
Other ways the company engages with customers include The Bubble initiative, a series of competitions for emerging creatives.
The result is a talent pool of artists, graphic designers and photographers, who get the chance to present their work on the General Pants website and also undertake projects for the company.
Major Label is also a key venture, for which company staff are encouraged to scout bands at local pubs and events and put them forward to have their music recorded.
“We get together and cut a track, and we try to do three records a month and those records are available online for sale. We also cut CDs and they are available in stores.”
While reluctant to discuss his personal business strengths, King says an ability to “read the winds” and to deliver what consumers want is essential to the role.
“General Pants is very much about feeding back into the market that we pitch to,” he says. “We don’t want to fish in the youth market and not give anything back to it.”
General Pants Co. buying manager Natasha Sefton will speak at the forthcoming Higher Learning fashion industry conference. The event will be held on June 17 and 18 at the Ivy Sunroom in central Sydney.